Lets make spend lots of money

My mother sold the car this morning. Wayhey - 6 months gross salary in one go:-)

Of course, she has to pay it in to her bank, wait for it to clear, send me a cheque, wich i have to pay into my bank, and wait for it to clear before it's real, but what's that got to with it? This morning, once I had dragged myself out of bed, groaned about my hangover a bit and tried the traditional cure of eating a large fried breakfast, we all wandered down to the horror that is PC World and bought 2 new laptops one for me and one for Mstr A.

Aren't credit cards great sometimes?

Aggie had been researching the best ones to get for a while, and unfortunately PC World was doing the best spec for the right price (I had set a lmit of £1k for the two). So they got our business. Which was a shame, as they are abysmal in so very many ways. My laptop was th last one in the shop, wich meant i got the display model. I tried for a discount for that, and salesman has to go off and ask the floor manager. No luck "it's already been discounted by £30off book price and we don't make much money on the machines". Yeah right. I tried for a discount for buying two too, and he went of again to ask, but no luck there either:-) I think the salesman was a bit disappointed in us by then. We did make it worse by refusing to even look at any of the dodgy insurance/tech support policies he tried to flog us. "It even runs right alongside the manufacturers guarantee, it doesn't replace it" No shit sherlock, it's illegal to "replace" the manufacturers guarentee, which I did point out to him.

Anyway, we get to the paperwork bit. I pay, and we point out that the PC World website tells us that we get a free cover for Mstr A's computer with it (it's got interchangeable covers you know - to look cool and up to date!). Salesman does not know anything about that. We ask him to look it up, and there it is, on their website. He's not sure that they have any in stock. I suggest he realy ought to go check. Off he goes to see the floor manager. Again. Eventual he reappears with a football one. Mstr A does not like footall. I ask for a different one, but he cliams it's the only one the have in stock. We take it anyway, on pinciple. And soon it will be on Ebay:-)

He goes off to find out if my display model has been packed up ready to take. No, the've lost the key to unlock it fro the display. Salesman spends several minutes running around in a panic. Eventualy he finds the key. The floor manager comes and whispers in his ear. Uh oh They need to do a full system restore because it has been used. I say we'll wait. He goes talk to the tech guys. I may be up to two hours. To do a system restore? Huh! But I give him my phone number, and say I'll come back to collect it when it's ready and off we go.

3 1/2 hours later I've heard nothing, and the shop will close in 30 mins. I go back to find out what's going on. The tech guy said he was just given a laptop and told to do a system restore, no-one said why, when or that I would be collecting it. I told him I wanted it toay and would wait. However long it took, and no, I didn't cae tha the shop was shutting in 30 mins! 20 mins later, i get my new laptop. at last.

Aggie has spent all afternoon setting it up and putting everything on. It's hardly plug and play! i wonder ow much PC World would have charged to do that? But still it's done. I should now be able to get online whenever I want! Whoppee:-)

I think perhaps I should wait until I have the money before I spend any more though.

Kaput

My laptop is dead again. We've given up this time and admitted that, perhaps, we will have to spend a little bit of money and have paid for a brand new hard drive. It will be here in a few days and hopefully I will be back on line properly and permently. But things will be sporadic until then.

Remember the filling that took 5 months to get, and then my dentist complianed that I had "waited" too long before coming to see him? Well, it didn't take:-( So I've been in some pain for the last couple of weeks. I went back to see him last week and had my first root canal work. So I'm still in pain<:( But hopefuly it will be improving soon - I have to go back on Monday for the new filling which everyone tells me won't hurt at all. Lets hope it works.

LMD is growing at an amazing rate at the moment - and sleeping incredibly badly. Aggie reckons is growing pains making her whinge all night, but I'm inclined to believe it's bloody mindedness!

However, We have finally got LMB's bedroom redecorated to a proper standard. We're waiting to hear what "compensation" they are intending to offer on top. They suggested the idea, so who are we to argue?

No answer yet on the holiday though. Apart from a rather nice letter from Which! suggesting I contact Haven head office trading standards. I really must chase that up. We've definitely decided to go with Butlins next year, which I hope isn't a mistake! I've already buggered ny real hope of a quiet holiday by not only having my mother-in-law staying with us (as usual), but my mother, sister and niece are coming too! *gulp*

LMB loves school - she's staying for lunch now too which is great. It would've been even greater if I had been able to find the money to pay for them without raiding the kids money boxes this morning:-( I'm feeling a bit more at ease at college this year too - the work (so far) is making sense to me - it's subjects I'm more interested in (mostly) and I'm trying to learn it properly as I'm going along rather than cramming for two weeks before the exams again! I'm umming and ahhing about whether to move jobs. I can make a lot more money in Bristol, but it's an hours commute -and an hour away from the family if/when anything happens. The company I'm with is pretty shit on it's employee care/training/relations but the department I'm in is pretty good on all that. I think I'll probably debate it round in my mind a bit more - thereby making a decision by default!

slogging on

Life is just slogging on at the moment. LMB's chicken pox scabbed over pretty quickly and she went back to school admidst wails of protsts. I thought it was just that daddy had spoiled her while she was at home, but as the days went on I had to wonder if there really was a problem. I finally managed to get a couple of names out of her today and spoke to the staff, so hopefully that ill be an end to it. She's only got two more weeks there, then we're off on holiday and she's staying off to do some fun things before starting big school, so i want them to be good weeks.

LMD finally caught chicken pox - yesterday 1000's of spots suddenly appeared all over her. Literally1000's and literally all over - she's got over 100 on her face poor love! In her usual awkward way she waited pretty much the full incubation period before getting it, she couldn't have it at the same tiem as LMB! Which means Aggie has to have another week off his groovy drugs. His skin's getting quite bad at the moment:-(

I had some issues at work last week - you'd think that a law firm would manage to implement employment law - or at least not do anything so *****ing stupid that they are begging to be taken to tribunal, but no. Apparently not. I seriouly considered leaving & taking them for all the money they deserve to pay out, but in the end decided just it write it down for future reference, then ignore it. My solicitor was on leave so he couldn't sort it out - although he was steaming when he got back yesterday! And I decided that I like him, and the rest of my department, and the work, and the set up is convenient for me, so there is no need to leave at the moment. But it was pretty stressful for a few days.

My nice new lap-top lasted one full day:-( Then it died:-( I'm back on the old one now Aggie has put it back together - sticky keys and all!

Mstr A started a week of football (soccer) lessons today. After all the successes we've been having recently, and the apparent non-aspie findings of his assessments I thought we might have got over all his behavioural issues. His school report was great, and he's started playing imaginitive games with the girls - but it was not to be, He spent half the time ignoring his coach and the other half hitting the other kids:-( We've had a long talk this evening, and he's written a letter of apolog, so hopefully he'll be a bit better tomorrow, but I'm not sure:-(

Although he loves his golf lessons - and seems to be doing pretty well at them. And he's asked to do some music lessons (if I can find anything that doesn't cost an arm and a leg) so perhaps we should consolidate his solitary persuits before working on team things.

Summer Holiday time

Schools out and Weston is heaving:-) The annual influx of Brummies and Scousers have arrived - and will stay for the whole six weeks of the school holidays (although not the same ones, obviously). We took the weekend off re-enactment as LMB is only just over her chicken pox, and LMD is still waiting to break out in cocoa pops, so we thought it would be sensible to stay near home.



Which meant that we had a whole weekend at home with no real plans:-0 Aggie decided to try socialising for once, and went off into bath with a load of other scaly people for a psoriasis meet. As we have such a enormous tank of a car, and he can't drink anyway because of some drugs or other (i can't keep up with what he's taking anymore), he was designated driver for the day, eventually lurching in some time in the early hours of the morning! It sounds like he had fun, which is great, because I don't think he's been out properly for at least several years.



The kids & I decided to listen to the weathermen and took a packed lunch off down to the beach yeaterday morning. Having packed eveything up, argued with Mstr A about what he should wear, and traipsed down to the beach, we settled down near the pier, and I handed out buckets and spades & picked up my book. LMD looked 100metres to the left & saw the donkeys, sceamed blue murder, clambered into my lap, grabbed both my arms and hugged them around her and refused to move. LMD doesn't like "horses"! No amount of reassurances that they were going the other way would budge her, so we sat like that for a while, as the early morning sun dissappeared and the brisk cool breeze picked up into a howling gale blowing straight off the sea, that was somewhere off on the horizon, collecting sand on it's way across the miles with nothing but us in it's way!.



After less than an hour, I gave it up as a bad job, and offered to take them to the park instead. LMD was delighted, LMB was persuadable, Mstr A was not happy. Some swift negotiation later, we packed everything up again, and walked up to the park. Up being the operative word. I know where the park near the beach is, and that it has a play area at the top. So I got us to the park and then allowed Mstr A to show me the way to the play bit. He chose a route that involved approx 200 steps! I carried the pram, and packed lunch and spare nappies/clothes, books, buckets & spades, fold up chair et al all the way there, and the kids all had a great time playing. We stopped for lunch, and were joined by a red squirrel - who popped right under the fence & lurked just a metre away from us. I threw him a grape, and he picked it up & nibbled it in front of us to the delight of the kids (and me). He gained himself a half dozen more grapes, before getting bored and bouncing off to go digging for worms or something.



The weather rapidly went downhill though, so by mid-afternoon we called it a day and headed home. I decided my own holistic navigation would be a better bet than Mstr `A's directions, and found a lovely slope straight down! Typical! We made it home before the`rains - just!



Today - which the weatherman said would be `awful, turned out gorgeous. I kicked Aggie out of bed about 10ish, and we went for a wander down to town, but ended up on the beach again as` it was `so hot and sunny. This is what living in a holiday resort is all about - it feels like your' e on holiday even when you're not:-) Even LMD consented to stand just a couple of meters away from the donkeys - in my arms obviously.

Oh yes, and I got a new computer (well, not new, obviously, but new to me) so hopefully my writing will not miss out quite so many letters now:-) Although the space bar is tiny, so it's going to take me a while to stop hitting / and ' instead!